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Melbourne 3D City Model, VIC

Welcome to the definitive 3d City Model of Melbourne - used for major project engagement.

As of 2016, Melbourne has been ranked as the world’s most liveable city for the sixth consecutive year, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). With its unique charm and character, the city is known for its famed alleyways and arcades while it is renowned for its distinct blend of contemporary and Victorian architecture.

The city centre is home to five of the six tallest buildings in Australia. To maintain the integrity of city planning, Victorian regulation states that buildings over 25,000 square metres are to be decided by the Minister for planning. As some of these buildings have the largest impact on the city and townscape spatially, economically and socially, the most advanced thinking, tools and workflow are required.

Working Together

Urban Circus has worked with the Victorian State Planning Agency for several years, providing them with a best-practice 3D City Model (3D MLB) to facilitate a range of advanced functions in their planning and redevelopment projects.

Our uniquely designed digital model has supported hundreds of development reviews, negotiations and processes. This has not only resulted in cost and time efficiency benefits but has also facilitated a cultural transformation of the development industry into a more collaborative and engaging practice which can be maintained through political change.

Urban Circus provides a world-class high-performing and reliable digital model for use in planning studies and live negotiations in workshops, meetings and design reviews. The outcome is shared understanding of workflows between submitted development assessments which enables efficient review and approval.

3D MLB features the option to clear a proposed site of existing infrastructure in 1-2 clicks, create a smart parametric tower-podium form in 4 clicks and import a 3D file – while conducting a meeting. Urban Circus provides further advice in a fourth edition Advisory Note to applicants on 3D digital modelling submissions.

Our 3D City Models allow our client’s team to run the technology on a day-to-day basis and call on us for specialist software, hardware and 3D planning support for infrastructure projects. We collaborate with the team to provide 3D printing workflows, data and other technology solutions as needed.

Using 3D MLB across different projects maximises return for the state by minimising survey duplication or model reproduction, e.g. for work on projects such as the Flinders Street Station Design Competition, the Shrine of Remembrance project, precinct plans, transport project integration and precision design review discussions.

Urban Circus continues to play an integral role in facilitating ongoing collaboration and engagement across multiple levels of government to drive integrated infrastructure and urban development partnerships.

Invaluable feedback from state planners has confirmed that 3D MLB saves significant time while increasing clarity and control in many, if not most, development assessment processes. To learn more, a conference paper was written by some of the most senior and respected industry planner-designers, highlighting the benefits of our model in this new era of responsive, visionary planning.